SIMON WON'T FOLD ON ANTI-GAMBLING STAND

Sen. Paul Simon may not be running for re-election, but he isn't giving up on his crusade to get the federal government to investigate the possible evils of legalized gambling.

The Illinois Democrat announced Thursday that if his bill seeking a federal commission isn't moved out of the relevant committee by March 15, he will take the issue to the Senate floor and force members to put their views on casino gambling and the like on the record.

Simon and Indiana Republican Sen. Richard Lugar, the bill's co-sponsor, have warned that the growing reliance of state and local governments on revenue from legal casinos, riverboats and other gambling outlets is threatening Main Street America with organized crime.

Warning of corrupt influences on the political system, Simon said: "Gambling interests were the biggest spenders in Illinois elections in 1994, and I expect they will be again in the next election."

A House version of Simon's bill has been approved by the House Judiciary Committee chaired by Illinois Rep. Henry Hyde (R-Wood Dale). But the Simon-Lugar version is stalled in the Senate Government Affairs Committee.

Midwest matters: President Clinton and Health and Human Services Secretary Donna Shalala have announced that, because of this winter's dangerously cold temperatures, the government is releasing to the states an emergency grant of $90 million for the Low-Income Home Energy Assistance Program.

That's the same fund they dipped into last summer to help Chicagoans without air conditioning survive the terrible heat wave.

The latest action quickly prompted both Simon and Rep. Dick Durbin, a Springfield Democrat running for Simon's seat, to announce that $5.2 million will go to Illinois. That compares with $11.4 million for New York, but also with $4.1 million in heat assistance going to usually balmy California, home of TV's "Baywatch."

Wisconsin and Indiana--with beaches that have never served as "Baywatch" locations, especially in February--are to receive $3.2 million and $2.4 million, respectively.

But he did jump forth via press release to complain that the shivering areas of America are not getting enough Low-Income Home Energy Assistance money because of "radical cuts" made by the government-slashing, Republican-led Congress.

- The Medicaid compromise worked out last week by Illinois' Jim Edgar and other governors has come under attack from a Washington-based public interest group, the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities.

Edgar and his colleagues said they thought the compromise would help bring the Congress and the White House closer in finally reaching agreement on the federal budget, while giving the states more control over how Medicaid money is spent.

The center has charged that the deal would deprive poor and disabled people of guaranteed medical coverage. Edgar and other governors could redefine what constitutes benefits under the new plan and thus weaken them, the center said, and they could also take away state funding from the program without paying a federal penalty.

"It would weaken Medicaid far more than a number of governors who voted for it may have realized," said the center's director, Robert Greenstein.

The governors insisted that their compromise won't hurt those who have no other recourse for medical care. It was viewed as part of a trade-off in which the governors get more flexibility on Medicaid but less freedom on spending federal welfare funds.

- With the Congress in recess and primary contests looming next month in many of their home districts, nearly all the Illinois congressional delegation last week split for home base.

There were only a few side trips, such as the one Senate Democrat Carol Moseley-Braun took to New York to be on "Donahue" Thursday.

Simon was about the only delegation member left in town, kept by his required presence at the never-ending Senate Whitewater hearings looking into the financial dealings of the Clintons and possible coverups.

How tedious have they become? Simon recommended medals for reporters who've had to cover them.

"They have to strain to get stories out of minutiae," he said. "The lead story, almost every day, ought to be, `Another non-productive day took place today in the Whitewater hearings.' But obviously, the editors would not like that lead story day after day, so something else has to be done."

Simon, a longtime Downstate newspaper columnist, should know. But maybe somebody will have the nerve to produce a story that opens, "It was another unproductive, tedious day at the Whitewater hearings as Sen. Alfonse D'Amato strained to. . . ."